March 28, 2011

As someone who knows a thing or two about interpretation, I don’t need John Hawkins or Rick Moran to point out Ayers’ tone of sarcasm. What I’m interested in is the rather pointed tone of the sarcasm — it’s too deliberate, and the question seems too staged — and I’m suggesting that, while Ayers wants to joke it all away (to provide himself an out), he also very much wants credit. It’s who he is. It’s who they all are....

No surprises here. Ayers has just taken a shot at Obama as retribution for Obama's attacking Libyan leader Kadaffi. It seems that Ayers and his buddy Farrakhan are mad about a loss of funds from of their sugar daddy in Libya.

Okay. An answer everyone knew. "Who wrote Dreams of my Father?" Did he take it from thin air, or did Obama provide "notes?"

Now, on the birth certificate, stipulating that I believe Obama was born in Hawaii, but something is being hidden. Did his mom put in that he was "Caucasian?" She was asked by the staff, after birthing Barry, to supply at least this piece of information.

What if the birth certificate would show how much of the "Obama" story is a lie. Including his name Barack Hussein? (I'm just asking.)

Now, what about college transcripts. Did he get into school, first at Occidental, as a foreign student? Did he pay less than the going rate?

How come no one seems to know anything about his college records? You know Dubya was a C student. And, Gore got D's. Obama received no grades at all? Just a ticket UP?

Seriously, would anyone really be that surprised to find out that he wasn't even born in Hawaii? That his name wasn't anything but Barry something or other on the birth certificate, where ever it was issued? That he didn't get that good of grades, and wasn't even anywhere near as smart as people say he is?

Both the birth certificate and Ayers authorship issues are intended to discredit Obama's opponents. I don't understand why they continue to fall for it.

There's no reason to think Obama didn't write "Dreams from My Father". Most people who went to college as long as he did can write a not-very-good book.

There's no such thing as a secret "long-form" birth certficate, as anyone who has been in a closed adoption can tell you. That thing they fill out at the hospital and put your baby's footprints on is not a legal birth certificate. A legal birth certificate is the thing the State prints out and stamps for you when you ask them for one.

Although Cashill says the evidence is "overwhelming," I think the probability is more in the 40-50% range.

Of course, none of it matters now. As Obama likes to remind us, he won. All of this should have been vetted much more carefully and thoughtfully during the 2008 campaign--and actually well before the campaign. It's hard now to remember now how much mileage Obama got out of his purported authorship of those books, particularly DREAMS. A more incisive investigation then might have derailed his candidacy.

(So too might more press interest in John Edwards's affair. Had Edwards not run or dropped out earlier, Obama might have lost Iowa and Hillary might have sewed things up.)

Ayers is a charming and engaging guy in person. He is irreverent and funny, and good with the quick quip. The notion that he wrote Dreams of my Father is in his self interest, and to my thinking this is his attempt to keep the issue boiling.

"Both the birth certificate and Ayers authorship issues are intended to discredit Obama's opponents. I don't understand why they continue to fall for it.

There's no reason to think Obama didn't write "Dreams from My Father". Most people who went to college as long as he did can write a not-very-good book.

There's no such thing as a secret "long-form" birth certficate, as anyone who has been in a closed adoption can tell you. That thing they fill out at the hospital and put your baby's footprints on is not a legal birth certificate. A legal birth certificate is the thing the State prints out and stamps for you when you ask them for one."

"Dreams" was meant specifically to get the knowledge of Obama's foreign father before the public, so as to set the precedent of one being born a dual citizen (at best, since a pic on a website is proof of NOTHING), and being elected POTUS. This is the Dream of the NWO Debt Masters-- To set the precedent of a foreigner in the WH.

Obama is well aware that Chester Arthur committed fraud, and the public was unaware of his foreign father, so now he seeks to set that precedent, so that his NWO Debt Masters can infiltrate the WH w/ foreign influence.

They didn't count on a few smart patriots catching him, so now he is stuck w/ the BC Conspiracy. It matters not WHERE Obama was born. He was born British, and as such is not a natural born Citizen, eligible to be POTUS

But the argument is only about whether Ayers was a ghost writer, i.e., took material provided by Obama, perhaps even a manuscript, and re-worked it into book form, which is how most celebrity "auotobiographies" are done.

How do you know Obama didn't ghostwrite one of Ayer's books? You have exactly as much evidence for THAT theory, as the theory that Ayers wrote "Dreams From My Father".

Actually, there is a lot of evidence. Read Cashill's book. There is circumstantial evidence, comparative-literary evidence, and testimonial evidence (Christopher Anderson's book on the Obamas cites two unnamed sources for the claim that Obama engaged Ayers to help with the DREAMS manuscript).

Think about: It's not just that the future president of the United States engaged a ghost writer, but rather that his go-to guy was an unrepentant domestic terrorist who, just before 9/11/2001, stated that he wished they have bombed more.

Obama likely suffered from writer's block when he was in Indonesia. Ayers likely edited or rewrote dreams. It seems part of the story is Ayers interpertation.Someone posted first several paragraphs of "Dreams" on liberal blog and said it was Palin's book and mocked it. The libs feel for joke and said that Palin was stupid for writing such crap. Joke was on them (and us).

He's a criminal. He's unapologetic for being a terrorist. He got off on a technicality that just so happens to occur to well connected rich Chicago democrats when they are involved with the criminal justice system in that area.

Why would anyone employ him in education?

Why can't we prosecute him for treason? His organization attacked the Capitol and the US Army. Surely there were multiple offenses.

It's not so kooky to believe he wrote Dreams. Obama's other writings are totally different, and politicians generally use a ghost writer. Obama in particular is so lazy that it's easy to believe he did so. Remember, he failed to finish his memoir in a timely fashion, despite being paid in advance.

Ayers dedicated his book to the guy who murdered RFK, too. And he's a good friend of Obama. Amazing.

I think the most important lesson here is that the radicals are deeply concerned with controlling education. They know they can do this for 40 years and then have a massive political advantage. Things most kids assume today are pretty radical.

Well, Gabe, I've read some of Obama's writing; infantile poems about monkeys and bananas, for example. Sure, they were written as an undergrad; but it's awful, it's shit.

Let's just say I expected more.

And I read Dreams. It's not a bad book; it's very well-written. In fact, it doesn't read at all like anyone's first book. It has that professional writer feel to it.

So if Obama didn't write it, who did? Clearly someone who doesn't care about the royalties -- so they have some other motive. Clearly an experienced writer. And a writer who continually uses nautical expressions and metaphors.

Obama doesn't strike me as a sailor, Gabe. Does he you?

Ayers uses those same metaphors in other books. And some blogger somewhere did some sort of statistical analysis of the words used in a book by Ayers and this book that was quite convincing. It's been a long time since I looked at this, and I'd hate to look it up again at this point, because honestly, like the birth certificate, it doesn't matter at this point.

It's clear that these two were political allies, that Obama was the protege', the creation, of a mad-bomber communist anti-American son-of-a-bitch. That's all we really need to know, and that's beyond dispute.

"There's no reason to think Obama didn't write "Dreams from My Father". Most people who went to college as long as he did can write a not-very-good book."

Somebody, a few months ago, posted an excerpt from "Dreams" and attributed it to Sarah Palin, as an excerpt from her book. The comments were hilarious as leftists trashed it as an example of the writing of an illiterate hillbilly.

"I can't top that. A bit more anger than I would have mustered. I normally reserve that level for Hanoi Jane :)"

Then your anger is misplaced. Jane Fonda is just an actress, and these days a pretty forgotten one at that. (Do people even talk about her movies anymore?) But Ayers is an educator in a prestigious position at a major university and is one of the few people who can be said to be a "friend" of the president of the United States. As such he has much more ability to do lasting harm to the country than "Hanoi Jane's" silly stunts.

Oh, and my birth certificate and those of my kids all have much more information than what has been released as Obama's. That may be Hawaii's policy but don't give us the story that all birth certificates look like the one released by Hawaii.

Ask David, Inquisitor. Perhaps in between gushing about how Ayers is a "charming and engaging guy," he can explain why the anti-American scum who crowed "gulity as sin, free as a bird" should not be hanging from the highest lamppost in Illinois along with his loathsome "off the pigs!" whore of a bedmate.

He strikes me as a guy who grew up in Hawaii, where it is not unheard for people to spend time on the water in boats. Failing that, he could certainly know people who sail, or read books about people who sail. Is that impossible?

Is Bill Ayers a sailor? If not, then by your logic he didn't write the book either.

It's really so utterly crazy that someone who went to Columbia and Harvard could write a book? That's not even that good?

Unnamed sources say that Obama engaged Ayers? These the same ones that have the original "fake but accurate" TANG memos about Bush?

That's what this is: fake but accurate. You decided already that Obama is a diversity hire with a fake resume, so you grasp at any straw that supports it.

I heard Obama might be gay. He sure seems to want gays in the military. Let's demand paternity tests for Sasha and Malia and accuse the Obamas of a coverup when they refuse.

Most politicians use ghost writers. It ranges from grafting your own name to the ghostwriters output (Profiles in Courage by Ted Sorenson) through handing him an outline, dictating some ideas and letting him write the prose to the ghostwriter taking a manuscript and editing down to something that is readable.

The first fraud, the second carries the intent and the third is fully legitimate. The author Thomas Wolfe (of You Can't Go Home Again fame) was notorious for bringing his manuscript in on a hand truck and then leaving his editor to reduce it to something that is readable.

My guess is that Dreams of My Father was a product of 2 & 3. The scandal is who the ghostwriter was and not that it was ghostwritten.

That may be Hawaii's policy but don't give us the story that all birth certificates look like the one released by Hawaii.

It is not Hawaii's policy. My children were born here on Oahu -- my daughter, just two months after Obama's birth in the same hospital -- and my son two years later. The official Hawaii birth certificates I had to obtain to enroll them in school and later to apply for passports look nothing like Obama's "certification."

All of this seems to be a diversion to send potential opponents on wild goose chases. The more attention paid to issues like the birther/Ayers issues, the less will be paid to BHO's major weakness: His incompetence as President on many different levels.

For those who want him to be defeated in 2012, it would be well to make him run on his (thus far poor) record as President. Anything that happened far in the past is chaff.

A fair reader of Cashill's essays would likely have to conclude that Ayers had a significant influence in the writing of "Dreams".

Whether Ayers was a co-author, the sole ghost writer, or his editing influence was so substantial that it left a detectable Ayers "literary fingerprint" is not the point.

The point is that Obama took sole authorship credit for a book that likely involved substantial collaboration with Ayers. I suppose another possibility is that Obama was so enamored by Ayers writing style that he effectively plagarized Ayers literary techniques, but that seems far fetched.

If you had read them both without knowing the authors, you would never guess they were written by the same guy (aside from the fact they are about the same person).

Isn't it weird to write so much about yourself before you've accomplished anything? I can only imagine what we're in store for over the next 50 years.

Anyway, Dreams was written by a good writer who wrote a lot of books. It's just ridiculous to claim it wasn't ghost written. Was it Ayers? Those arguing it was have a good argument, if you give it a chance.

@Andrea-There are 58,000 names on that black V in Washington, D.C..Consider the fact that General Giap was ready to capitulate until he noticed our media was starting to turn against the war and decided to "sting the elephant" a little more...How many of those names do you suppose would not be there if the North Vietnamese had actually sued for terms in '67-68 and had not been aided and abetted by folks like Jane Fonda, John Kerry (SPIT), etc.?I cowered under the same rocket fire the day Lt. Sharon Lane became the only female killed by enemy combat action in June of '69.

We were at war then.We are at war now.The major difference?Folks like me are more vocal and point out stupid comments from folks like you.Educate yourself before opening your mouth.Please.

Carol_Herman said..."Now, on the birth certificate, stipulating that I believe Obama was born in Hawaii, but something is being hidden."

I don't think anything's being hidden, although that's the impression created by his refusal to release the birth certificate. It's not hard to see why: It's politically convenient for him to keep the loony fringe on a rolling boil.

Doesn't matter whether Obama was born in Hi. or the White House. His foreign father disqualifies him. Obama was born a British Subject, and may be to this day. He is an illegal POTUS giving illegal orders to our military.

His past isn’t especially of interest right now. How he’s chosen to comport himself as President of the United States matters a lot. I love the original version of the Manchurian Candidate as much as the next guy, but there's no upside to pursuing the matter.

Whoever is running against Obama in 2012 is running against a sitting President with a record of his behavior AS PRESIDENT.

This other nonsense is a sideshow. There's plenty of stuff Obama's done in the last 4 years to criticize. The conspiracy issues are lame and petty and crazy, and make Obama's opponents look that way.

Well, I don't see any potential candidates on this blog discussing the issue. Althouse isn't generally a blogger who tries to get involved in the actual political process (ala Kos or Hamsher).So the idea this can't be talked about *here* because of the harm it will do to 2012 candidates seems overwrought.

Is it really that difficult to talk about Ayers AND Obama's failures as president?Wasn't, perhaps, Obama floundering lies about Ayers and others) a good indication that he might have many failures as president?

I concur with Pastafrarian; The sophistication of the writing in Dreams is in a totally different class from anything else that Obama has written, before or since.

The only thing I'm sure of is that the book was significantly doctored. Who did it? Who knows? But I wouldn't rule out Ayers by any stretch, and he's such a narcissist it wouldn't surprise me at all if he's dropping these nuggets as a form of mental masturbation.

Whoever is running against Obama in 2012 is running against a sitting President with a record of his behavior AS PRESIDENT.

This other nonsense is a sideshow. There's plenty of stuff Obama's done in the last 4 years to criticize. The conspiracy issues are lame and petty and crazy, and make Obama's opponents look that way.

He's not eligible since he was born British. That you don't care about the Constitutional requirements of the POTUS speaks volumes.You really think the founders were OK (with anyone but themselves being born British, and serving as POTUS? It's just inconceivable.The "akes us look bad nonsense is just that, nonsense.

"Barbara: Your child was born in the same hospital as Obama? Please tell that to Donald Trump because just the other day Trump claimed no one knew what hospital Obama was born in."

No hospital has claimed him, much less put up a plaque commemorating his birth. A pic on a website is proof of nothing, and so is an automatically generated by 3rd person testimony Newspaper ad. See how far you get displaying those items as evidence in court. See how far you get in Wash. DC showing a COLB to get a passport, much less pointing to a pic of it on the internet.

Your child was born in the same hospital as Obama? Please tell that to Donald Trump because just the other day Trump claimed no one knew what hospital Obama was born in.

I know, AJ. I thought about that, but mentioning it would have made my post too long and complex, I felt. Obama (or members of his family) at first said he was born at Queen's Hospital, later said Kapiolani Hospital. My daughter was born at the former so it may have been the same one, may not have been. Of course that's assuming that Obama was indeed born in Honolulu.

Barbara said...That may be Hawaii's policy but don't give us the story that all birth certificates look like the one released by Hawaii.

It is not Hawaii's policy. My children were born here on Oahu -- my daughter, just two months after Obama's birth in the same hospital -- and my son two years later. The official Hawaii birth certificates I had to obtain to enroll them in school and later to apply for passports look nothing like Obama's "certification."

3/28/11 11:16 AM

Very interesting, What are the differences in the forms for you children and the form posted for Obama? Another question about Obama's dual or triple citizenship: as a minor he had no say over this so it isn't fair to hold him to that, however as an adult has he ever renounced those citizenships? If not, then there is a problem in terms of his running again.

Doesn't matter whether Obama was born in Hi. or the White House. His foreign father disqualifies him.

Why?

He was born in Hawaii. His mother was American. The citizenship thing, without something more, is not going to work.

Now Ayers writing his book, that is something. Not as big as you might think, since most Democrats will sadly not care Obama is a liar or fraud. But some indies will care and that will hurt Obama on reelection.

Leave it to Trump to bring up the trial lawyer's standard of proof in serious talk. He is just curious why no testimony of Doctors and nurses and Hospital personnel can be found. That is not proof of birth outside of the USA, and Baby Barry certainly cannot be blamed for the sins of his mother and grandmother. So most folks say give it a rest.

My children's birth certificates are not stored at my house. If you'd like to see a copy of another from the same day in 1961 Obama was born, you may do so by googling "Elizabeth Nordyke's birth certificate." (Alas, I am not clever enough to provide a link.) Nordyke is the daughter in a prominent family here and her bc has been featured online for quite some time. My children's certificates are exactly like Nordyke's, in terms of the information shown.

Rush's view is Trump is giving cover to the Dems who are too stupid to take him up on it. Frankly, the evidence is pretty clear Obama was born in Hawaii. There are birth announcements in the paper (what do they have a time machine now to go back do that?). Is there something here beyond location of birth (like a different biological father listed)? I doubt it but maybe.

My guess is Obama's college applications might have good stuff in them. But all of this would have maybe made a difference in 2008, as of now it is not a big deal.

Of all the things to focus on about why Barack Obama should not be re-elected, the location of his birth is the least important.

I agree with Fred and others who say that the birth certificate issue has little importance now. Still, it is part of a pattern of silence, obfuscation and mystery about our president's history that is unsettling.

It's interesting that Ayers dismisses O's second book, Audacity of Hope, as "political hack" stuff. When it was published, it got a favorable review in the NYT, and an equally favorable blog-post here.

And two: I wasn't defending Fonda. I was pointing out that she is not important. She was only an actress. The media and the intelligentsia in this country would have decided to turn against the Vietnam War with or without her presence. Be as angry with her as you like, but don't elevate her in importance above terrorists like Ayers. People like him were killing people in this country. Instead of being put in jail for life he was allowed to attain a position of importance, and now he has the ear of the president of the United States. Does Jane Fonda have any influence on Obama? Does she have any influence on anyone anymore? But it's so much easier to complain about actors and other media lightweights.

Go cry over the Vietnam monument all you like. While you were bitching and moaning about some silly actress posing on a cannon, our country's educational and political systems were infiltrated by the very people your Vietnam buddies were fighting. Thanks for all your help.

Andrea:What I was trying to illustrate to the clueless is that actors, politicians, and media types like Cronkite ARE important because their influence lead to the election of Obama and others with a direct link to those deaths.

Trump is important because he is the wedge/lever on this issue that CAN'T be ignored or contemptuously brushed aside. Whatever one thinks of "The Donald" everyone knows he's nobody's fool. His *Q* factor means he'll remain in the public headlights on this issue--and he has tons of money to push it further if he wants to, although I'm sure he doesn't want to look like he's fixated on the subj, so would prefer to let others take the ball he's tossed and run with it..

And Mick's concerns are far more important than people give credit for. I know it looks realistically "sophisticated" to say he's President and that's water over the dam and that we conservatives have bigger very real policy fish to fry, so don't taint our msg by being painted as "crazy birthers," etc., but sportsfans, what the sealed records of Obama--ALL of them--are about are the very foundations of the Constitution and the rule of law--and the very bedrock of what constitutes a LEGITIMATE government. If the requirements to serve as President--the guy whose finger is on the nuclear trigger and in this regard is authorized to act without Congressional authorization--can be waived/subverted and/or ignored, then all bets are off, ANYTHING can be ignored. And Obama's ex post facto "explanatory speech" tonight about Libya is exhibit#1. Bush got an authorization vote of Congress for Iraq, did he not? And it WAS debated prior to the vote, was it not? But NOTHING of the sort was done by Obama--apparently we are now subservient to the will of the UN--because that's the ONLY official seal of imprimatur the US Libyan action has.

And don't EVEN mention the War Powers Act. THAT applies ONLY if the US or its forces have been ATTACKED, which is NOT the case here.

Look, we can walk and chew gum at the same time. The legitimacy of the Government of the US is no small matter..

Of course, none of it matters now. As Obama likes to remind us, he won.

Yep, and Althouse voted for him.

A lot of commenters were horrified that she knew he was lying on a lot of matters (- or less than truthful) yet she still did it.

If you've read Orwell you know why that matters.

When I read this comment at Belmont Club by Storm Rider I thought immediately of Althouse.

********

Answer: Totalitarian government is made possible by a dual strategy where intelligent people are reduced to a state of controlled insanity, and where the less intelligent are reduced to a state of poverty and ignorance.

“Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously [the lie and the truth], and accepting both of them [Insanity]… with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth… Those who have the best knowledge of what is happening are also those who are furthest from seeing the world as it is; in general the greater the understanding the greater the delusion; the more intelligent the less sane… You believe that reality is something objective, external, existing in its own right. You also believe that the nature of reality is self-evident… I tell you Winston that reality is not external. Reality exists in the human mind and nowhere else; not in the individual mind, which can make mistakes and in any case soon perishes; only in the mind of the Party, which is collective and immortal. Whatever the Party holds to be truth is truth… If human equality is to be forever averted; if the “high,” as we have called them, are to keep their places permanently; then the prevailing mental condition must be controlled insanity.” George Orwell – 1984

**********

Althouse voted for the candidate she knew was lying and many commenters rightly called her out on that.

"And Mick's concerns are far more important than people give credit for. I know it looks realistically "sophisticated" to say he's President and that's water over the dam and that we conservatives have bigger very real policy fish to fry, so don't taint our msg by being painted as "crazy birthers," etc., but sportsfans, what the sealed records of Obama--ALL of them--are about are the very foundations of the Constitution and the rule of law--and the very bedrock of what constitutes a LEGITIMATE government."

Finally, someone in this vast wasteland of the supposedly sophisticated gets it. Obama's ineligibility is THE ISSUE. The entire Government is Illegitimate, and ALL members of Congress are committing Treason by allowing one born a British Subject to be POTUS. If you think that the founders were OK w/ someone born British (except for themselves) to be POTUS you're crazy! Obama may be BRITISH to this day, and here he is giving orders to our military. That no "law profs" and "Constitutional scholars", scared of the "birther" epithet, say a word is doubly shameful.

Andrea, I generally agree with your take on things and have followed the many perturbations of your blog off & on since 04/05, but you're only partly right about Fonda and Ayers. Yes, today Ayers is the more important to obsess over for all the reasons you cite, but you under-estimate the "aid and comfort" Fonda gave the N. Vietnamese to steel their resolve to hang in long enough to allow Fonda and her types to do their 5th column bit on the home front.

That "silly actress posing on a cannon" may well have emboldened the crew of that very piece of anti-aircraft equipment to stay at their stations a few seconds longer and enduring withering counter-suppression fire from me or my squadron-mates while I was shooting at them; or if I was part of the bombing package ignoring suppression fire while aiming at me. It's very personal to those of us whose lives were endangered by the resolve and encouragement she provided the enemy. There is a reason Lord Haw-Haw was condemned to death in WWII. (Although Tokyo Rose was not as she was an American national trapped by circumstance in Japan at the outbreak of hostilities and claimed coercion.) With Fonda there was NO coercion.

"Doesn't matter whether Obama was born in Hi. or the White House. His foreign father disqualifies him.

Why?

He was born in Hawaii. His mother was American. The citizenship thing, without something more, is not going to work. "

You're dead wrong. Natural born Citizens are born w/ singular allegiance to the US. Obama was born British because of his Kenyan father, and still may be British to this day. See Vigil's X's post above. Natural born Citizens are born in the US of 2 US Citizen parents. No statute is necessary to make them US Citizens. Obama knows he is not eligible, and lets it fester. He is evil, and he gives illegal orders to our military.

Whoever is running against "Obama in 2012 is running against a sitting President with a record of his behavior AS PRESIDENT.

This other nonsense is a sideshow. There's plenty of stuff Obama's done in the last 4 years to criticize. The conspiracy issues are lame and petty and crazy, and make Obama's opponents look that way."

BS. The usual line of the apologists, who have no idea of which they speak. That a British Subject is giving orders to our troops is Treasonous. You are getting what you deserve, and I am trying to educate the public, and save the likes of you from themselves.

" Mick, I am no fan of Obama. But you are wrong on this issue that one foriegn parent disqualifies you (if you are born here to a citizen) from running for President. Especially if the mom is American.

I wish it could be that easy to send him packing, but it will not."

Really? where does it say birth in America to one citizen makes a natural born Citizen?

How about that 85 yr-old+ US Army WWII vet recently in the news that recently found out he has no proof of American citizenship when contemplating a trip to,iirc, Canada? Now in his case it's gen. acknowledged that he is a valid citizen; he just can't prove it. But the take-away from THAT STORY is that his LACK OF DOCUMENTATION means that he CANNOT get a US passport to travel abroad under current rules/regs and US law. It will take a special bill in Congress to change his status. Point being the laws cannot be ignored willy-nilly, even when it is obvious that a bureaucratic snafu, and not wrong-doing was involved. And Obama should be exempt from the laws while one who demonstrably and certifiably fought for his country is not?Puuleeeze..

The "theory" that Ayers wrote the book isn't known widely enough for the sarcasm to have hit its target, if the target was indeed to mock the theory. Then, too, if he'd meant the comment ironically, he likely wouldn't have added the lagniappe about royalties, because it undermined the sting of the line. He wants the credit. And I don't blame him; I'd want it too. Like the old joke, if he had known it was going to be so successful...

PS: The guy is 95 and his name is Leeland Davidson. He was born in Canada to two US parents but they failed to file proper documentation. When he joined the Navy (not Army) in WWII they told him "not to sweat it" but when he went to get an enhanced Drs lisc. for a trip to Canada he was turned down as US Govt considers him offically Canadian. And his parents were born before they started keeping official records in Iowa (pre-1880) and so he can't prove his parents were citizens either..

The Constitution has been violated before and we survived. Time to cut your losses and move on.

Whether the Constitution has been violated or not (I'm of the "Weak Birther" persuasion, in that I'd bet money Obama was born in Hawaii, but there is/was -- documents do get lost, misplaced, eaten by leopards, etc. -- something on the original Birth Certificate that would be embarrassing to Obama) the fact is Obama is President and bitchin' and moanin' about it is futile.

Also, if Ayers gets really ticked off at Obama because he's bombing Libya, or Syria, or Venezuela, or whoever is next on the Hit Parade and produces solid documentary evidence that yes, Dreams was written on the same typewriter that Bill used in his Weather Underground days and produces marked-up drafts with Barack saying "Make me look more hip here" then so what? The sycophants will turn on a dime and say that of course Obama used a ghost writer, all politicians do, and what are you going to do about it?

FWIW, I'd put a 10% chance that this is Ayers' game. The only thing that worries me about this is that means Bill the Bomber actually has some extortionary leverage on Obama.

I see these comments have been taken over by crazy conspiracy theorists.

The only thing crazy is refusing to acknowledge data. There are lots of holes in Obama's documentary history, and as I said, anyone who has looked at Obama's body of work can see that Dreams doesn't fit. I find Cashill's argument compelling because of common stylistic flourishes and metaphorical conceits between Dreams and Ayers' writings, but I admit that could just be a matter of Cashill framing the case well; I have not read Ayers' work independently, and I do not wish to dirty myself by doing so.

Having said all that, the question really is "so what"? Even if Ayers trots out the drafts, how much does that hurt Obama? I think the squishy middle has seen quite enough of Obama to know that Obama's word isn't exactly his bond, and I don't know how many who weren't "rubes" in the first place would find the touch of Ayers toxic.

I see these comments have been taken over by crazy conspiracy theorists. You should all go join your 9/11 truther buddies for drinks. Same ridiculous mindset applies....

One difference between the JFK, moon-landing, and 9/11 Truther conspiracies and the authorship question (I'm not a birther so I'll leave that for others) is that the former "conspiracies" have all been subject to enormous, nonpartisan, and often scientific examination--and have all been found wanting.

The authorship question on the other hand has barely peeked on to the national media radar screen. Like Obama himself, it has not been properly vetted. Jack Cashill's book was briefly reviewed in the Washington Post this weekend. The review consisted basically of a statement of its thesis and a corresponding conclusion that such a thesus is, of course, ridiculous. It did point to a few of Cashill's literary comparisons, which of course are the most questionable evidence, but the reviewer declined to engage the entire argument.

As I've said, the time to make hay of this has passed, but it does provide a cautionary tale for the future: never again should such an untested and unvetted candidate--magical negro or not--get such a pass from the media.

Well Blogger can just go fuck itself. This is my second try. Here goes:

If Jane Fonda had been executed as a traitor (highly unlikely in the culture of the 60s, but let's leave that aside) she would just have been elevated to the state of martyr; instead, she's been left to the obliteration of time and ridicule. Does anyone care what some now-aging actress has to say about anything?

We need to stop giving these people oxygen. We need to stop giving them space in our heads. Every time a conservative freaks out about some political stunt from an actor, God lets another commie get tenure in one of our universities.

Matt, people used to joke funny ha ha about "landslide Lyndon" and "allegations that he stole the 1948 Texas Congressional election until Robert Caro INDISPUTABLY PROVED that he DID INDEED steal the election. (202 ballots in Precinct 13 came in in alphabetical order and all names of those 202 were found to be certified dead on election day)So who's laughing now? If not for that stolen election Johnson might well have left politics (which he said he would do at the time) and thus never been elected VP, then Pres. Niggling little "details" matter, matt. Those who charged that LBJ stole the election of 48 could well have been labeled "conspiracy nuts" for over 40 years, matt, yet they were proven correct. LBJ DID "CONSPIRE" to rig the 48 Texas Congressional election--the proof is now finally, thanks to Robert Caro, irrefutable.

Dream your condescending dreams, matt...sometimes the paranoid "dullards" are correct far more so than their more "sophisticated" critics and their scathing disdain..

And matt, if you say that all those intervening years it took to prove that LBJ stole the election means that it simplyisn't worth it to be bothered insofar as practical politics go, i.e., that election is looongg a moot point now, I say that it demonstrates ALL THE MORE reason to strike while the iron is hot and DEMAND investigations NOW, rather than beg off on the basis it makes one look like an "unsophisticated" fool. That's what types like Obama COUNT on. "With each passing day," etc.

"Really? where does it say birth in America to one citizen makes a natural born Citizen?"

Where does it say it does not?

From Wikipedia:

"There are various ways a person can acquire United States citizenship, either at birth or later on in life.

[edit] Birth within the United StatesMain article: Birthright citizenship in the United States of AmericaMain article: Jus soliSection 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."

In the case of United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898), the Supreme Court ruled that a person becomes a citizen of the United States at the time of birth, by virtue of the first clause of the 14th Amendment, if that person is:

Born in the United States Has parents that are subjects of a foreign power, but not in any diplomatic or official capacity of that foreign power Has parents that have permanent domicile and residence in the United States Has parents that are in the United States for business The Supreme Court has never explicitly ruled on whether children born in the United States to illegal immigrant parents are entitled to birthright citizenship via the 14th Amendment,[5] although it has generally been assumed that they are.[6] A birth certificate (a.k.a Certificate of Live Birth for children born in certain states) issued by a U.S. state or territorial government is evidence of citizenship, and is usually accepted as proof of citizenship."

@Barbara: The official Hawaii birth certificates I had to obtain to enroll them in school and later to apply for passports look nothing like Obama's "certification."

If Obama's B.C. were not the standard looking form, wouldn't Hawaii's former Director of the Department of Health have had cause to mention that when she publicly stated she had seen Obama's original birth records in the Health Department's files? IIRC, in her public statement, and again more recently in the kerfuffle raised by the newly elected attention seeking governor of Hawaii, no one used the precise term "birth certificate," but what they claimed was pretty much the equivalent.

As you probably know, Kapiolani hospital is located only 100 yards or so from the apartment building where Obama's grandparents lived. Therefore, isn't it more likely Obama was born there rather than at Queen's hospital in downtown Honolulu (although not so far away as the golden plover flies)?

I'm a born skeptic, but I see no reason to think Obama was born anywhere else but in Hawaii. What I find more intriguing is the publication of a grade school class photo in the local newspaper, which appeared to show Obama enrolled as a young child in the Noelani School in Manoa at a time when he was supposed to be living with his mother and new father in Indonesia. As far as I'm aware, no one has disputed the photo and no one has provided a good explanation for it either.

Your citations say NOTHING about qualifications/eligiblity for thePRESIDENCY--only for general citizenship requirements..not all "citizens" of the United States are elgible to be President. Witness the present Governor of California..

She wasn't making Barbarella flics in Hanoi, she was making propaganda for our enemies. She was part of their planned public campaign to hurt the US and its will to fight. Those of us that were there will never forget or forgive hanoi Jane. It may not make sense to you, but it's visceral.

Joan Baez, I can understand and forgive. Daughter of Quakers, she was more about Human Rights than anti-war. here is a wiki extract:

During the Christmas season 1972, Baez joined a peace delegation traveling to North Vietnam, both to address human rights in the region, and to deliver Christmas mail to American prisoners of war. During her time there, she was caught in the U.S. military's "Christmas bombing" of Hanoi, North Vietnam, during which the city was bombed for eleven straight days.

Her disquiet at the human-rights violations of communist Vietnam made her increasingly critical of its government and she organized the May 30, 1979, publication, of a full-page advertisement (published in four major U.S. newspapers)[30] in which the communists were described as having created a nightmare, which put her at odds with a large segment of the U.S. left wing, who were uncomfortable criticizing a leftist régime. In a letter of response, Jane Fonda said she was unable to substantiate the "claims" Baez made regarding the atrocities being committed by the Cambodian Khmer Rouge.

lapetus: If Obama's B.C. were not the standard looking form, wouldn't Hawaii's former Director of the Department of Health have had cause to mention that when she publicly stated she had seen Obama's original birth records in the Health Department's files? IIRC, in her public statement,

Her carefully worded statement did not include that she had seen the original birth certificate.

As far as Kapiolani being the hospital choice because of its propinquity to the grandparents' residence. . . Who knows? My children were delivered at the hospital where my physician had privileges, not the one closest to my home. In any case, I'm not sure that Barack Obama's parents lived with his grandparents at the time of the child's birth? Do you know that?

Enough dead horse beating. I have no particular knowledge of the circumstances of Obama's birth and entered this discussion only to clarify that our state's official birth certificates look a great deal different from the one the public has seen.

Actually, algorithms exist to compare texts to determine authorship, and software has been written to implement those algorithms. This article describes what happened when this form of mathematical analysis was applied to Dreams of My Father and a book by Bill Ayers. If you can't be bothered to follow the link, I'll summarize: there is a very high likelihood that significant portions of Dreams of My Father were written by the author of Fugitive Days, i.e., Bill Ayers. Not the whole book -- but parts were written from scratch and other parts heavily edited by Ayers.

But there's another reason to think that Ayers wrote portions of Dreams of My Father: on more than one occasion he admitted as much. Was he lying then, or is he using a sarcastic tone to lie now? Does it matter? Mathematics does not lie, even if Chicago politicians do!

FWIW, a fascinating book on the subject of textual analysis is Author Unknown, by Don Foster. (Buy it though Professor Althouse's Amazon link.)

But the video is fascinating. It seems an obvious plant and planned answer. It is perfectly consistent with Ayers having a big role in the book. The question is why is Ayers saying anything? Maybe to remind Obama of the power he has over him? I suspect that Ayers is playing games and will at some point falsely deny any role. It is pretty clear that he had a role. Cashill's book is an excellent and persuasive read.

THE BC MEANS NOTHING (except as verification). By the birth story already admitted Obama was born BRITISH. As such he is not qualified. There are methods to remove him, as outlined in the US Constitution.A British Subject may be giving orders to our military, which falls right in line w/ Obama's belief that the UN can direct our military.

"Your citations say NOTHING about qualifications/eligiblity for thePRESIDENCY--only for general citizenship requirements..not all "citizens" of the United States are elgible to be President. Witness the present Governor of California.."

That's not the question. Mick Jagger seems to think that a person born in America of less than two American citizen parents is somehow not a citizen. As if this weren't self-evidently ludicrous, I merely posted a cite having to do with various ways in which persons acquire citizenship through birth.

On to the question you seem to be responding to...where is it suggested or asserted that an American citizen by birth, with only one (or NEITHER) parent being a citizen, does not qualify to run for the Presidency? In fact, any natural born citizen may qualify to become President.

Mind you, I am no fan of Obama and did not vote for him, but I an annoyed at obvious idiocy.

The idea that Obama is subtle enough to leave the questions about his birth certificate swirling in order to discredit honest inquiry into his origins just doesn't fly. He's not that subtle a thinker. I mean, someone that subtle could have the middle name Hussein and get elected President.

but I also think there's enough of a chunk of Obama's critics who brought that up and kept at it enough to load that gun...

and that there are too many, from both perspectives, who've hammered away at the issue for whatever reason, and for whatever they think they'll gain politically, to make this one a clean smear, anymore: and by clean smear, I mean on the part of the purveyors from either perspective.___

Personally, I would like to have seen this resolved long ago, and you can be sure I assign ample blame to President Obama for not resolving it long ago. I mean, what the hell, sometimes you just have to suck it up, if in fact what you want to do it move on.

Hey Fred4 -- I don't have a huge problem with the birth certificate -- more the obfuscation about it and Obama's various nationality possibilities (Kenyan father, Indonesian adopted father <--- was that a legal adoption?, American mother) but it is somewhat ironic that factcheck.org is "Annenberg Political Fact Check."

What was the state of international law/international family law, in general, in the U.S. and in Hawaii back in that day?

I've not looked into the history of Obama's father for, oh, a few years now, but as I recall (perhaps faultily), it was pretty generally recounted that he had already gotten married to someone in his native Kenya prior to his alliance with Obama's mother or the birth of Obama. In Kenya, perhaps that's no problem. Would that have been no problem in Hawaii/the U.S.?

If so, then what?

---

Mick, was he born British or anything else other than American if in fact--and I'm not saying it is a fact--there never was any valid marriage on account that in the U.S., more than one marriage is considered bigamy (rendering any later marriage as invalid) as opposed to polygamy, under different definitions in different cultures and countries?

You're the expert, Mick. Answer my questions, both the explicit (and the implicit).

It seems to me that if in fact it wasn't a valid marriage *legally* (again, if in fact that's the case) it doesn't matter WHAT any of the parties thought of it.

And if it wasn't, was there a law existing at the time that stated that if a single American citizen, having had sex with a foreign national, ends up involved in producing a child, that child ends up sharing the citizenship of the foreign national, the lack of legal standing for the parental union nothwithstanding?

Oh, and by the way, Ayers is a slimey piece of crap who escaped his rich desserts only by virtue of the mis-, if not mal-, feasance of certain law enforcement individuals and organizations at the time.

For which I'll never forgive--nor forget--them, as I'll never forgive--nor forget--him. Talk about a shared pox on their houses.

For both: Are you referring to the blogpost[s], the comments or the commenters, some combination among the three, or all three as as an indivisible clot of opinion? Do you think such distinctions are important? Do you think it's important to make such distinctions?

I think Barack Obama is both; I've yet to see convincing evidence he's not OR to see **all** relevant speculations addressed by those who insist upon making it an issue and bringing it up over and over again.

There are no centrists nowadays, RI. Bush's polarization of the country assured us of that. But it is good to see a creeping centrism starting to regain some slight ground again, perhaps over things like the complexity of what it means to intervene in Libya and, oh yeah, the obvious looniness of birtherism noted by your saner rightists here.

Birtherism is an obviously loony fringe-right mark of distinction, immediately disqualifying one from even mainstream right-wing membership, let alone the center. I'm impressively dismayed but not surprised to see it displayed so prominently here (although the strong rebuttals are encouraging). That's probably what Tim's referring to.

I have no idea what your 10:15 demands are asking of me.

Obama is born in the USA and therefore a citizen. His birth here guarantees his eligibility for the job. The loony going by "Mick" isn't even contesting that but going on about some half-baked notion that dual citizenship is barred and a threat to a president's identity. His blog seeks phony baloney legalisms in an attempt to further that plank in his anti-Obama jihad. Presidents, to my knowledge, are not barred from possessing additional citizenship status.

BTW, the reason the Founders didn't designate a long lineage of American roots for their presidents is because the majority of them were themselves 1st or at best 2nd or 3rd generation native-born Americans with parents who themselves were British subjects - as EVEN THE COLONISTS THEMSELVES WERE.

QED.

Mick is an idiot. Where do you right-wingers and birthers come up with these cranks? Is it not incredible that one of your own would set a bar for the presidency that was higher than what the founders knew that they had to set for themselves?

The most interesting, and I think the most plausible, Cashill theory is that Barack Obama Sr. is not really Obama's father. He is a "beard" to provide a father to the child of a young white girl (Ann Dunham) who was knocked up by a black guy, probably family friend Frank Marshall Davis. Davis also is probably the photographer who took the nude photos of Obama's mother.

Political polarization (like many things) can be measured, but I'm sure like other knee-jerking true believers, you refuse to accept this.

As wild as the wild right went over the horrible man known as "Bill Clinton", most grew to have more appreciation for him by the end of his term and thereafter, and independents (and a majority of the public) supported him all throughout the impeachment drama that your buddies inflicted on us. This is not and was not the case with W. W.'s attempts to massively expand a drug benefit (and government spending in general, I suppose) might have seemed like an idea to appease the left in his own mind. Unfortunately for him, the results of these efforts are what mattered, not the extent to which they expanded the state and its spending.

Clinton, OTOH, was perceived as a moderate by his eventual "triangulation". He didn't go for hard extremes in policy on both sides, the way cowboy fratboy cheerleader did.

Carter became unpopular by the end of his term, but there was no deliberate polarization. The conservative movement ushered in by Reagan was a new phenomenon, trying out radical experiments in government that even Nixon hadn't tried.

What other basic political history lessons did you want me to teach you today? I assume you are old enough to either know directly of these presidents and their legacies on American political life or at least to have learned about them. Pity that you didn't.

Oh and "I Am" -- most presidents, when confronted by a trauma as devastating to the country as September 11th, don't go for wildly unpopular policies like launching a massive invasion of a country that couldn't be directly linked to that episode - but instead, deal with a problem of that magnitude in a manner that most of the country could unite behind. It's hard to get more polarizing than that. BUt I guess you were just too much of a "moderate" to have noticed that.

I suggest that if you haven't, you try reading a history book for a change. It will give you a sense of perspective and improve your perception.

At the end of the day, even Bush's father would only go so far in pushing an agenda.

The tax rates under Reagan, (who actually had the responsibility to raise them from time to time), were higher than what Bush insisted they be for no reason whatsoever.

Again, not just my opinion and in light of some actual facts, not just arbitrary perceptions.

Some presidents just swagger on and do whatever they want regardless of how severe the backlash in public opinion. We call them "W."

The right has now unfortunately come to see unwavering arbitrary conviction in the face of strong or widespread backlash or other informed misgivings as an unqualified strength, and perhaps the only thing to strive for. This is the legacy of W. Sarah Palin attempts to be its standard-bearer.

You can't legitimize this sort of behavior without some hard-core polarization.

Obviously Bush and Co. were up to the job. That's what he wanted to do. He didn't care about public approval ratings, remember?

I supported the original mission into Afghanistan, as directly related to 9/11. I did *not( support the invasion of Irag leading up to it, though once we were in there, I supported doing job as well as possible to the benefit of the Iraqi people and our interests as well.

I've not made any secret about either of those things.

(Hey! I'll go one further! I did not support our entry into the Gulf War, either, during the debate leading up to that one. But once the debate was decided, I thought we should carry it all the way through. Once we went there, I thought we ought to go all the way and finish Saddam Hussein's regime, on the grounds that if we didn't, it'd make for a worse mess later.

Which, IMO, it did.)

I'm a skeptical, and therefore reluctant, warrior, with a certain streak of isolationism, but if we go, then I think we should "GO"!

I'll go one further (and in this one case, I'll make an exception and do it even though we're IN action, on account of "Public debate? What public debate? There WAS no debate!"): I don't agree with our decision w/r/t Libya, either, for much the same reasons as I opposed others at the outset:

P.S. I also didn't support the prescription-drug program, and I think that ethanol subsidies have been both a sop and boondoggle from day 1. At this point, it's also OK by me if the state gets out of the marriage business altogether. So there!

What I find odd is that Stanley Ann enrolled at the University of Washington just a few weeks after BHO was born, leaving her husband in Hawaii (some marriage, that) and (presumably) their infant child with her parents.

Curiously, Bill Clinton's mother also left him with her parents to go to nursing school for several years, but I believe he was a toddler at the time.

Cashill has some information indicating the Ann Dunham took the 15 day old Barack with her to Washington to go to school. There are some old friends there who claim that they saw her with the baby shortly after she moved there in August.

(Yes... Jane... but not that one) Didn't get to peruse all comments, so perhaps this is a repeat, but had read somewhere recently (interview with a former POW, maybe?) that during one of Fonda's overseas tea times with the enemy, the POWs were told they were going to meet her and many wrote secret notes to their families which were slipped to her as they were shaking hands. She collected them as she went along and then handed them over to the enemy. The Pows in question were apparently tortured for days over it.

Drill Sgt.: I'm not saying you should "forgive" Fonda -- why do people think I am defending her or something? -- but you should be angrier at the fact that Bill Ayers and his awful wife are still in prestigious positions of respect and influence, while Fonda is a has-been. I mean, I think she's doing fitness videos now or something, which is pretty much the mark of a washed-up Hollywood star. Being no longer wanted by Hollywood is a worse hell for celebs than real hell. I don't know anyone who respects her anymore -- maybe the harpies on The View but who cares what those biddies think?